What pushes you from liking someone to actively getting them into your life?

[ToGoBoldly]

Hi,

What the thread title says, really.

I'm really struggling with feeling isolated and lonely. I've felt like this all my life, but it's been really intense recently so I have been feeling even more low than I ususally do.

I have a handfull of friends but no one really close, and they are all kind of fairweather friends. They've all kind of retreated away from me into their own lives, which is fine, I accept people grow apart, but it feels like everyone in the world has a network of friends and a partner, and I am being left on my own. I try really hard to get out and meet new people and stuff, but I feel like I am constantly rejected and it is really, really difficult to bear.

I have been doing some work on my feelings around this with my therapist and have been asked to drill down on why I believe I don't form close bonds with people. I can only think that people don't like me enough - they don't dislike me, but they don't like me enough to actively want me in their lives. It's as simple as that. She's tried to suggest I might be familiar with the feeling of rejection so kind of invite it, but I really don't think that's true. I try really hard to go out of my comfort zone with people - I am shy but friendly, I invite people to things, I make the first move, I volunteer myself for things, I am generous, I'm laid back and not pushy... but none of this seems to count. It feels like plenty of people think I am nice enough but they don't want or need me as a close friend. I don't blame other people for this - no one is obliged to be friends with everyone - but I just feel like everyone chooses people to be in their lives, but no one chooses me. And I've really hit a wall in trying to work this out.

This post sounds really needy and whiny, I promise I am not like this when I am trying to make friends or boyfriends! Like I said I am having counselling (for various things) but we've kind of reached an impasse on this one.

I've felt like this forever. I felt it at primary school, at secondary school, at university, at work, and in my love life. The only way I could explain clearly to my counsellor was how I felt it at primary school, so their behaviour is clear, not because they are horrible children but because they don't try to hide their feelings. But you can see more clearly with kids how people naturally gravitate towards those they want to be friends with, and that often is the really pretty girl, or the boy who is really good at football or whatever. I don't think things change a lot as an adult, it's just more subtle. And I don't think anything bad about people who have those who gravitate towards them and want to be their friend, but I just feel really sad because it feels like no one naturally gravitates towards me. It makes me feel really unloved and depressed.

I try to be proactive, no matter how many knockbacks I get I try to carry on with life and try new things, but it's really overwhelming. I asked my counsellor what she thinks I could do differently, but she is either stumped, or wants me to work the answer out myself. But I really can't think of anything beyond "people don't like me enough", which is their prerogative, but really hurtful when it feels like I'm not good enough for anyone I've met in my whole life.

So I guess I'm trying to bash out these thoughts a bit more. Am I just hideously unlucky that I never seem to meet people at the right time for them to want to pursue a friendship or relationship with me? Or what is the magic ingredient that makes people want to move things forward? I feel like there is a locked door and people will smlile and wave at me through a window and think "there's that woman, she's nice", but they won't ever invite me in, if that makes sense.

I am sorry if this sounds quite immature and self indulgent

Yes. It was kind of bewildering at the time but now it's just shockingly poor that it could happen. But typical of my NHS experience looking at you, racist nurse who told me I am fat and gross and asked why I am so fat, with my whole history of eating disorders in front of you, when all I went in for was a smear test and then you were so hopeless and rough that you made me bleed . My GP is beyond shit as well. I never go to them when I am sick anymore. I put off a smear for months because my previous experience was so traumatic. I eventually went to a walk in centre miles from home to have one, along with an STI test that I had been putting off since I was assaulted. I was so terrified that I was on the verge of tears. Then I nearly cried because the doctor was so nice, sensed my anxiety and calmed me down. If only all health professionals were like this. I don't know why you'd choose to work in health care if you hate people!

I digress.

Intheprocess, I don't think I'd suddenly be happy if I had close relationships, no. I don't think everyone with friends and partners is happy all the time, I'm not that naive. But they have some, or even a lot of happiness derived from their relationships with people. If they have a shit day or a good day, they have someone to tell. If they get a new job, they have someone to tell who will be excited for them. If they go through some terrible illness they have someone who will support them.I have no one I can talk to about my struggles. They have sex lives and physical contact and debates and conversations and laughs with people who celebrate and appreciate their existence. Everyone I know has someone, or multiple people usually, who they are close to. Their lives are not perfection but they are enriching and productive and meaningful. I just go to work and go dancing. It's not living, it's like being a clock.

The way I get a bit of closeness and affection is through having pets. Obviously it's far from the same as having human relationships but it does help a bit.

Boldly

My problem is not feeling worthless, it's feeling like my worth is not valued and no one will take it from me and appreciate it, hence it is pointless and my life is empty and without meaning.

That last bit is the problem. You feel your life is empty and without meaning because you have no external validation. Perhaps the solution to this bit isn't finding closer relationships per se, but working on self-validation.

Self-validation > Confidence > Close relationships > External validation

No self-validation > Insecurity and neediness > No close relationships > No external validation

Why do you feel you lack the ability to self-validate?

Egghead, yes that's a point. I love animals. I had a cat but he died a little while ago, I was so devastated and cried for days . He was a moody little bigger and all take take take, he did not return my affection, but I can accept that from a cat bless him. I was so upset when he died. It's a little too soon to get another pet, but hopefully soon enough. I'd love a dog but work too far from home to give it enough attention. Maybe I can do dog walking or something. I love dogs.

ITP, the only way I can think of describing it (and I had trouble with this analogyanalogy as it's a bit reductive so deleted it, but shall try again) is like having a million pounds in the bank, but still not being able to afford anything. Either everything costs two million pounds, or people trade in gold not cash, or all my money is in loose change so people don't want it, they only want £50 notes, even though my money is supposedly worth exactly the same. A million pounds is undoubtedly valuable, but pointless if you can't buy anything with it. So I can keep saving away and doing the right thing but it's pointless, because everyone else already has enough, or costs keep going up so even though I still have a lot, relatively it's meaningless. Only it's not my money that is admirable yet meaningless, it's my very existence. *

*This analogy was in no way sponsored by my frustrated efforts to save to buy a home. OK it is, but that's a whole new thread. And at least that is explained by bad luck.

I love dogs! All that unquestioning love and devotion and excitement and ridiculousness [heart]

Cats not so much. Whose doing who a favour here ? Too much like my cold, withholding, cruel family.

Very very upsetting when a pet dies though. Proper bereavement imo.

I do think what you are experiencing is real and, of itself, can't be reframed. Isolation can be desolate, savage. We are not designed to be totally alone and the effects of that can't be underestimated.

Therapists talk about 'strokes' - good, warm, healthful interactions, however brief: a kind bus driver, a smile, a car that let's you in at a junction, a compliment, someone laughing (understanding!) your joke, validation, respect, professionally. These go a surprisingly long way - it doesn't take much. Yy we want the real thing, long term, a parking space for the foreseeable - of course.

Ah yes, the NHS. I am currently up to my neck in the NHS - my own personal horror scenario. I'm managing to pace myself, keeping my focus on my health (which is my business, as much as they clearly think i am their property and act accordingly; used to, expecting, unthinking, worshipful, compliance. They currently, benevolently, 'patiently', chivvy me along like I'm at kindergarten, ravaged by my own willfulness - bless). I do however feed back eg being chucked out of a consultants practise for - what? Search me: absence of grateful grovelling? Got a two-page apology and, yay, the consultant doing a good approximation of a grovel. Result! Now THAT is a 'stroke'
But hey you dickhead gp in your dickie bow who sneered and laughed at me when I was suicidal - I was too beaten down at the time to challenge you along official channels, afraid of yet more of the same. You fuckhead i hope you're dead . Plenty more experiences like that, sadly: plenty (I'd be here all day, serious stuff). PALS, ToGo. I don't make a complaint, not willing to expose myself to being mashed up in the vicious NHS dump truck, but I do make an 'observation'. Training, see. PALS are neutral and don't represent the NHS. Ime they have been very, very supportive.

I'm sorry you experienced that from that psycho bitch, ToGo. When you were so vulnerable!

*Self-validation > Confidence > Close relationships > External validation

No self-validation > Insecurity and neediness > No close relationships > No external validation*

This is what I mean when I feel like everyone says it's the chicken, it's the chicken, it's the chicken, I don't understand why the possiblity it might be the egg is completely rejected. I am pretty self confident, I know I am kind and vaguely intelligent and generous and I have plenty of good qualities to offer, so I think I have self-worth and don't feel insecure and needy because I feel I am undeserving or not good enough. I validate myself but no one else validates me. It's like a radio show that no one is listening to - what's the point in broadcasting it? Or a cake that no one will buy from a cake stall - what's the point in making it?

In that case, do you think that self-validation isn't enough to justify a person feeling their life is worthwhile?

I guess so. I accept that some people are perfectly happy with it and I don't think they are being silly, but I'm not happy. It's not because I am unhappy with myself, it's because I am unhappy with the idea of only having muself myself for company for the rest of eternity.

It sounds a bit existentialist and philosophical which is not my bag. The counter argument to how I feel is people saying "oh but you're a lovely person, and you really made someone smile 15 weeks ago when you helped them onto the train, and if you died unnaturally it would upset the natural order of the world". Is that supposed to be enough? Some people have starring roles and the rest of us are just extras in the natural order of the world, even if we are living absolutely miserable loneliness? That to me sounds like a cop out of it's all fate and meant to be, and it sounds like giving up.

Hang on a minute, it's 'only' loneliness. Not all that other stuff about fate and the order of the universe or whatever. It's one thing: loneliness. Which is fuckin painful, no question. No dressing it up. It hurts a great deal.

It's a hard fact to face which is probably why we try to put a positive spin on it. Not you, though. Brave sort.

Iirc someone recently wrote a book about loneliness, an unflinching 'diary' account. That may - or may not? - be a help to read? I recently had a go at facing something unbearably painful in my life. I tried for about two years, believing The Truth has its own peace. At the end of the two years I was on my knees, no 'peace' in sight. So I've taken to some magical thinking to, well, survive. I have to live.

Talking of which, how are you on that front? Do you consider checking out? If that's OK to ask.

Not right now but sometimes I do. We don't ask to be born, some people have a great time regardless, some of us have too much misery, who says we have to hang around only to be battered by pain? Why do we need to do this if we don't like it? "Oh well it's not so bad, other people are miserable too" is not a good enough answer for me.

"only" loneliness is a pretty big thing, yes.

I think some people genuinely have happiness with their lot - that's great. I think some people kid themselves that they are happy, and then they are happy as a result, or at least feel that they are. Also great.

But I know I'm not happy and I cant lie to myself about it, which I think is why I can't do the positive spin thing. I admire people who can and don't want to drag them down, but I can't lie to myself and make myself believe something that just isn't true and is completely against all evidence that I have gathered in all my years. I'm fatally honest with myself. That's not punishing myself, that's just being truthful.

I believe it's very difficult to make strong bonds with people once you are past the school and university stage. Many people have bonded with their "besties" (urgh!) through years of drunken happenings or simply having to sit together at school (often not by choice in the first instance).
I am a likeable person and have lots of acquaintances, yes. But I'd never be someone who is nominated for something on Facebook (sorry if this sounds trivial but it does bother me). I had a hen party but arranged it pretty much myself. Quite a few people came but I did have some feelings of inadequacy and that maybe I should have been closer to the people I had invited. There was no question of a baby shower. I feel silly for putting these examples here but they are indicative of not really having close friends. I'd love to celebrate my birthday but I'm afraid of inviting anyone in case no one comes (or worse - one or two people come expecting a lot more!)
I'm mid thirties and I'm broadly happy with the way things are, as I do have a partner and children. But I do miss having proper friendships. I've had numerous opportunities to be more sociable over the years but I've often felt like I'm just making up numbers when I've been invited to things.
I'd agree that it is straightforward to foster trivial friendships through hobbies or meet up sites but harder to get anything more meaningful. I can think of a very small number of people I know who are absolute diamonds, who make friends left right and centre, are fun to be around, and manage to sound like they give a shit about everyone they meet. The trouble is that these people are very much in demand so it's hard to get close to them. I think most other people are actually rubbish at making new friends and sustaining new friendships. This latter group tend to fall back on old school friends or sisters rather than open their minds to someone new.
I think what I'm trying to say in a somewhat roundabout and self-centred way is that it's not you, it's them! People are naturally lazy - why reach out to a stranger when you can just reminisce with your old friend about that night where you drank five pints of cider or whatever. People are also selfish - they gravitate towards people who are already with others rather than the person on their own as that is a quicker way of expanding their own networks. Like if you're at a party and you can sense the person you're talking to is scanning the room ready for an excuse to leave you to speak to someone more interesting.
The way I handle it is to think that one day I will meet someone who I can connect with, but just not now. In the meantime I try to remain pleasant to everyone I meet, try to take interest in others' lives even if they aren't very interesting, and try not to overshare too much about myself on first meeting someone, as that can come across as needy.
Sorry for waffling on selfishly, I just wanted you to know that you are not alone. All the best OP.

I think we need to separate out components such as: alone, lonely, shame. That last one is a killer - and there is something we can do about that, as well as the second. (Imo)

I read on here the other day that we feel shame about feeling lonely but we don't feel shame about feeling hungry or cold: all subsistence needs. I found that quite releasing - always on the lookout for shame to stamp it out. Our culture is obsessed with popularity, friends (fb, twitter). BIG no-no to admit loneliness, let alone be it. Look how long we've taken to get down to it properly on this thread.

I am predominantly alone but I am not always lonely. Sometimes I feel shame about being alone or lonely eg there are times during my treatment when the medics insist I musn't be alone but it's been - no, felt - a challenge to find someone to stay. Actually, it's all slotted into place (so far) but it has made me feel anxious and ashamed that there is no-one automatically available. Plus the medics say "don't you have family or friends??" and the implication is clear there must be something wrong with me if I don't. But there isn't something wrong with me - I know I'm not the only one and I feel quite militant about it: I don't want their fear and prejudice all over me, thanks, I have enough to be getting on with. So perhaps being ill has clarified this for me, a lot of extraneous stuff has dropped off: I refuse to be ashamed of it. Not that I'd force that into people faces bcs the prejudice and fear around it is so deep and i'd only get the splashback.

A lot of it is down to circumstance anyway, the luck of the draw. I enjoy immensely being alone these days - and I'm an extrovert! - but it's been a long haul to get here. My biggest enemy has been shame about it and I've made big inroads on that - more to come. I can feel lonely without feeling ashamed of feeling lonely. But loneliness even without shame is painful and bites - just like hunger, actually. No getting around that.

Thank you for answering my question. I've certainly had a fair bit of wondering what is the point and wanting to, well, fade away. Which goes to show I am not ill enough to actually do anything about it. I mean 'mentally' ill (though why they call it 'mentally' ill when it's often emotionally 'ill' is another thing. Distressed? Severely distressed?)

OK then: misery. We could look at that. I have some friends (we're all shipwrecked sorts) who are deeply miserable for very good reason: the 'luck of the draw' has been brutal in our case. As we're all on the shit side of the 'luck of the draw' we talk about it and there's a fair bit of black humour along with glimpses of real pain and despair. It feels like a naughty secret sometimes to thumb our noses at new-age shite that has flooded our culture and taken a real hold (You Can Have What You Want If You Believe Enough) by expressing this stuff: a fellowship of suffering, loneliness, despair. There's a place for it, especially if it's the reality.

Perhaps you could swerve the cheerful lot for a while and plunge into the 'alternative' misery community? I say 'friends' but we generally bump up against one another, too wretched to properly connect a lot of the time. The Sorted jeer at this, genuinely horrified: misery begets misery, avoid it all costs! Well bully for them.

Hi camelfinger. I don't think you sound trivial at all, I know what you are getting at. I think you also have a good point about people getting lazy, and people who don't give a shit about others unless it's to make themselves look or feel better somehow managing to ride on the coat-tails of actual nice and popular people .

It feels so bleak and hurtful when it seems everyone in the world but you has someone, whether it's a couple of close friends, many close friends, a partner, a child. Most people I know have more than one person who has chosen them for their inner circle and I just feel frozen out and now I am completely screwed.

Springy, you talk sense again. I don't think I feel shame about being alone or lonely, I just hate it because it hurts. I am quite good at entertaining myself for a bit, and I pay no attention to social networks where people publish the best edits of their lives. But my feelings like this predate Facebook by about 17 years - it's not embarrassment or envy or anything, it's because I feel like something is missing and my life hurts without it.

I have never ever found anyone who feels the same way I do, and there is no way you can mention not being happy with your life to people, they just yell at you for putting a downer on proceedings and then make you feel even more shit for "being so negative". It's impossible to find people who understand, or even are just empathetic even if they don't experience the same.

My therapist asks me whether I believe I am the only person in the world who feels like this, and whether I would judge someone for being alone. No of course I wouldn't, but my point is a) I never meet anyone in the same position so I feel even more of an outcast and b) some people are happy being alone, but I am not. She tried to say something about people living alone being the fastest growing group at the moment. So what? Suicide rates are also increasing, if we're playing the random statistics to prove our point game. If people are happy being alone, that's great for them. But I'm not. If someone was unhappy being in a marriage I wouldn't say "well a lot of people manage to live as married couples", because that's a completely pointless argument in that individual's situation. I'd wonder what was making them unhappy and think they'd need to escape it. But you can escape from a marriage to undo that happiness, you can't escape from yourself if solitude is the thing making you miserable.

What do you think we are then? You are not the only one with this, ToGo. So less of 'I know no-one' - you certainly do.

Admittedly, your social circle seem to have the depth of 8yo's with their jeering dismissals of your 'downers' and maybe you've lost - never had bcs of the ppl you're surrounded by - perspective. What you are struggling with is age-old, across the globe throughout time, even if your shit friends are too dim to recognise it.

You do read I hope? Not just literature - a rich seam of human experience, usually glum bcs happiness doesn't make a good story (I thought of you today and Angela Ashworth's Once in a House on Fire came to mind - have you read it?) - but eg philosophy? History? Endless examples of people who have been brutalised, not valued, not cherished. With disastrous consequences. Endless examples of despair in all its forms. You are not and never have been alone with despair, even the despair of isolation.

Do you give? I don't mean just money but time, attention, to orgs who are desperate for any extra pair of hands. It gives perspective, would make it very clear indeed you are not alone with the exact-same suffering and despair you currently experience.

I sound cross - but you like brutal, seering, truth, no? Plus I just lost a carefully-constructed (tap tap) post and I am pissed off about that.

Unlurking to say how much I admire your resourcefulness and resiliance Tooboldly. Don't give up.

Yes I read, hardly ever read fiction though. Yes I know that I am fortunate compared to other people and they have managed to be happier than me. I know I am not the only person to experience these feelings but I cannot keep on living with them anymore.

I do volunteer my time, yes. But even that I seem to have some sort of kiss of death. I have applied for so many volunteering things and they never get back to me, I turn up to things and they are cancelled, ... I don't give up though, I still persevere and try to find new things. Sometimes I (and even moreso the organisations) are unlucky and things fall through for lack of funding, the end of the project, etc etc.

I have perspective, I know I should count my blessings, but if I'm failing at life and happiness even though I haven't gone through as much hardship as a lot of people, that makes me feel like even more of a shit person.

Thanks SkaterGrrrrl. I don't feel resilient, I feel like I have exhausted every opportunity

I was thinking again about now wanting to talk about my childhood. It's going to bring up all these red herrings and I just know how the conversation will go.

"So tell me about your relationship with your father..."

"I don't know him, he's not in my life"

"ah see, THAT'S why you feel rejected by men, you have daddy issues"

"er no, I feel rejected by men because not a single man in my 31 years has wanted me to be his girlfriend, and I went for the older man because he appeared and I was lonely and bored, I didn't purposefully look out for an older man"

"But don't you see how that is caused by your childhood?"

"No, do explain"

"Daddy issues."

"that's not an explanation. Men just not liking me enough to be their girlfriend is a more plausible explanation, they don't get close enough to me to even find out whether or not I am in contact with my dad, which is pretty basic information when you get to know someone. I'm falling way before that hurdle"

"no you're subconsciously pushing men away because you fear being abandoned because your father abandoned you"

"how am I pushing men away? Here are ten recent examples when I have done nothing different from what any other people do yet still fail. Now it could be a), the mythical negative signals that you say I am giving by telling someone I like them, or it could be b), that I have some sort of scar of abuse or creepy, dead behind the eyes gaze that makes people know am damaged goods that only non-fucked up people can see (in which case I may as well just give up on life right now)... or perhaps it could be c), the explanation is staring us in the face - I am just not an attractive enough prospect for anyone".

"I still think it's to do with your father"

It's so frustrating that I am supposed to just embrace putting everything down to my upbringing and ignoring the fact that I am an adult and don't want to wallow in playing a victim because some shit things happened to me in the past. That is not going solve anything. Where is this going to get me?

also (writing writing writing, sorry I'm writing everything down so I don't forget it ) thinking again about self worth...

so if we insist on talking about childhood, what kind of child was I? I was quite advanced academically, I had an innate sense of what was fair and what was not, and lived by those rules, I was fun, I was sensible and well behaved, I was helpful and worked well with other kids, I was kind, I was loving to all creatures... all admirable qualities in a little girl. Did anyone value any of these things, or tell me that they did? Did they fuck. There were no rewards for being good things. I got plenty of scorn for things what were out of my control tough, particularly my looks and the fact that I was a fat girl. Was this fair? No, it's abhorrent. But all it was was an early lesson that life isn't fair, and it was a sign of what was to come. Being fat is the worst possible thing you could be as a girl.

Plenty of other kids said they didn't want to be my friend because I was fat, or because I just didn't fit in, or because I was brown, or because my hair was curly, or because my lips were big. Kids are a brutal but at least they are honest. They didn't want to be my friend because I didn't fit the image of what they wanted their friends to be like. That's horrendous for me, but fair enough for them, it's their choice. Plenty of people, adults usually, told me how disgusting and unattractive I was, and that no one would want me. Is this an absolutely horrendous thing to say to a child? Yes of course it is. Would I be horrified at an adult if I heard them say it to a child? Yes, because it's said to humiliate and hurt them.

But, did they turn out to be correct about no one wanting me? Yes. That's not because I walk around staring at the floor with my shoulders slumped looking glum, or because I am smelly and don't take care of my appearance, or because I don't know how to make eye contact and string a sentence together. It's because when they imagine a friend or a girlfriend, they don't imagine someone like me. They don't care about how intelligent or nice or generous you are, they don't bother to find out any of those things if you don't fit the mould to begin with. It's not fair, but life isn't fair. It's not my opinion, or their opinion, it's the truth. Other people might not go to the lengths of calling me repulsive, but they won't go as far as choosing me.

I never stopped being kind, or stopped striving to expand my intelligence (though I have felt less intelligent as I got older), I'm still a good combo of fun and sensible, I am the most egalitarian person you can think of and would never ever stop being unfair, fairness is the most important thing in the world to me... I am still these things as an adult, because I would rather lose on the truth and what is right, than win on a lie and what is wrong. But all these are the bare bones of decent behaviour that I would expect from an adult.

But if I was taught that none of these things really matter when I was a girl, and that all that makes you desirable is how rich and/or attractive you are, or more importantly, how well you fit in, then so were all the other little girls and boys. So if my attitudes were entrenched in childhood, so were theirs. If I can be forgiven, so can they. It's not like adults are suddenly less shallow than children, they are just better skilled at disguising their shallowness.

I am not being unfair to myself when I say I am not being picked by people because they don't want me - I am just refusing to lie to myself and say that what I have is enough to survive in society. If I had a daughter who was all the good things I was when I was child, I'd immensely proud of her and tell her as much every day. But I'd be so, so sad for her, because I know that's not enough. it's not that other people tell you it's not enough they show you it's not enough by either humiliating you or ignoring you.

So what use is something valuable if no one values it? Is it valuable even, if no one says it is? Why is an unflattering judgement of my worth invalid because it hurts my feelings, but I am supposed to keep ploughing on telling myself "you're worth it! well done, you're an awesome gal" and it's valid, even if no one else believes it?